


Time Once Lost

by snowshus



Category: DCU (Comics), The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Pre-Flashpoint (DCU), Time Travel, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24869650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowshus/pseuds/snowshus
Summary: Time is a cruel thief to rob us of our former selves. We lose as much to life as we do to death. - Elizabeth Forsythe HaileyWally has changed.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Iris West, Linda Park/Wally West
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18
Collections: Fandom 5K 2020





	Time Once Lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [salazarastark (niewanyin)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/niewanyin/gifts).



> thanks to nightmistress for the beta job!
> 
> I've taken a few liberties with the wedding, please forgive me.

Wally invites him to take the kids to the Grand Canyon for the afternoon. It’s snowing in Keystone, thick clouds of white swirl through the city on an angry wind. It’s not quite violent enough for Barry to call it a blizzard but it’s getting close. Wally’s kids have a lot of energy to burn and forcing them to find ways to burn it inside is a recipe for disaster and destruction. The Grand Canyon is far enough south and west that the weather is only mildly chilly. A thin layer of ice crunches under their feet as the kids run off, climbing up over the rock formations with Wally just a few steps behind them. Barry stands in the middle of the open desert, it’s bright colors muted by the grey sky and watches them run.

Wally keeps asking him to come on these excursions with them under the pretense that he needs the help, though it’s an easy lie to see through. Wally darts after his twins, easily keeping up with them. He is the fastest man alive, and they’re eight. Barry isn’t here because Wally needs help corralling his children. Barry is here because Wally’s worried. They all are. Iris and Jay and Hal, even Bart probably. They think he’s not adjusting well. They think he’s going to isolate himself, convince himself, again, that he wasn’t supposed to be back. 

They aren’t wrong. Barry had always felt out of step with the rest of the world, until he got his powers. He feels that way again. His old friends on the force have moved up or out. Iris has lived a whole life without him, raised children and grandchildren in the time it took him to blink. There’s all these new faces sitting around the JLA table and little Dick Grayson in the cowl and cloak at the head. And the chair Barry used to sit in is filled already. Wally looks good there, in Barry’s suit.

God, everytime Barry looks at Wally he feels the missing years. With everyone else it’s easy to ignore. Jay and Joan were always older, a year or two in either direction doesn't make much difference. Iris is the same beautiful amazing woman she has always been and nothing in the world could ever change how he feels about her. His grandchildren are from hundreds of years in the future and it’s easy enough to pretend their parents haven’t come yet, instead of remembering he missed them completely. But on Wally the changes are inescapable. 

It’s obvious things, like his height. He’d been tall as a kid but in the years Barry missed he’s managed to shoot up another four inches and overtake Barry. Barry keeps expecting to look down and ends up staring at Wally’s chin, which has lost the last of the soft curves of youth that Barry remembered. And it’s big, hard to explain things that are just…different.

Last time Barry had seen Wally before dying, years ago but also only a few weeks, he’d been adrift, lost and aimless. The week before Barry’s death he’d shrugged his way through a conversation about why - after all the hours he had spent in Barry’s kitchen working on his application - he wasn’t going to college after all. Barry hadn’t known what to do, hadn’t known how to help Wally find some anchor in the world, some direction. He and Iris had sat in the living room of a house that has since been sold, demolished, and replaced with an ugly modern thing of glass and chrome, and struggled to find a way to help their lost boy. 

Then Barry had died. He died and left Wally to figure it all out on his own. It shouldn’t be so strange to see that he has. It shouldn’t make Barry feel so out of sorts watching Wally playing tag with his kids under the wide desert sky. He’s become settled. He built a family and a life that Barry had missed completely. Barry feels like a stranger, sometimes, or maybe like a ghost. Like he’s watching a life he doesn’t belong to. He isn’t upset that life went on without him. It’s good that Wally moved on, that he didn’t let Barry’s death drag him down. It’s just there isn’t any room in it for Barry now. He doesn’t fit.

“Ah here you are,” A man appears next to Barry. “This time is so busy, it’s a pain in the ass locating someone without running into one of the millions of people who really shouldn’t be seeing me yet.”

The man is older, his dark brown hair is liberally mixed with grey and deep lines curve out from the corner of his black eyes and carve echoes of older smiles into his cheeks. 

“Do I know you?”

“Honestly, I can’t remember and you probably wouldn’t recognize me anyways. I used to be blonde. Gene scramble in a universe shift isn’t very common but it’s been known to happen from time to time. Though I can’t complain, I think the whole dark mysterious look works better for me.” The man shrugs and holds out his hand. “Rip Hunter, time master.”

“Barry Allen.” He shakes the man’s hand. “How can I help you?”

“The question is actually how can I help you - don’t answer that.” Rip cuts him off before he can think to reply to the ridiculous question. “I already have the answer. That’s why I’m here. I can’t really explain without revealing too much of the future, but I’m going to owe someone pretty big and I’m returning the favor.”

“Am I dead?” Barry can’t help but ask. He knows any responsible time traveller wouldn’t reveal that information, but the thought is never far from his mind. He still can’t quite adjust to his second chance, can’t quite believe it will last-that it’s supposed to last. 

“I mean yeah, sometimes, everyone is dead sometimes. This isn’t about one of those times though. It’s just this is the best moment to repay the favor. Things are gonna get really weird and complicated soon and traveling between when I’m from and this era is just really messy for a lot of reason. See, there’s this tear and you have to be careful crossing it or you’ll end up in the new past and not the real past. It's best not to carry people across those sorts of universal hiccups, really fucks with their heads. So, finding a good time to take you from was not easy, and this moment will cause the least casualty problems,” Rip explains. 

Barry nods. He’s trying to be better about not throwing himself into work and running from his problems, but everything is always easier when he has a mission. “How do we stop it?”

“Stop what?” Rip asks. 

“This tear in the universe. Isn’t that why you’re here, so we can undo it before it happens?” Barry says whirling into costume. 

“Oh! Oh no, no, it’s already done. Trust me I’ve looked into it many times, it’s too big and too messy and it just _is_. Besides the universe has for the most part fixed what needs fixing. It does that. Existence is a hell of a powerful force and once something is, you can’t really make it not again. Things remember being and they want to be again. I don’t really know how else to explain it, but erasing someone or something from the universe ...You can maybe change it, that works on occasion but totally unmaking something is a lot harder than people think.”

“If you’re not here for my help fixing the world then why are you here?” Barry shifts awkwardly in front of the old man. 

“Like I said, I owe someone a favor,” Rip offers Barry a small half smile.

“Okay, so what does that mean?” 

Rip’s smile widens until it’s a real full on smile, with bright teeth and that spark of joy at getting to show someone something they’d never thought of before. “I’m just going to catch you up on something you missed.” 

He holds out a white gloved hand. 

The past is past, Barry has made his peace with that. He missed it. He hasn’t given into the temptation to use the cosmic treadmill to go back to be there for it. To raise his kids with Iris, or train Bart, or help Wally with becoming the Flash. This is Rip’s thing though. He knows what the timeline can take, or he seems to think he does. That is supposedly why he’s here now, and not taking Barry from a time when he would know what this was about. It’s all calculated to be okay. He isn’t sure how much he really cares if it isn’t. If he can just go back, maybe he can make a place that would need him now. 

He takes Rip’s outstretched hand and the world fades into white. 

It’s warm wherever they are, summer or maybe late spring. The sky above is the sort of robin's egg blue you only get on those hot midwest summers. Their arrival disturbs a flock of crows that caw loudly as they all lift into the air in a flurry of feathers of leaves. Rip has brought them to the edge of the small wooded area. The trees around them are young and thin and quickly disappear in a few feet as the ground begins to dip down in a gentle slope towards an old turn of the century farmhouse. 

The house was two stories with a gabled roof and white paint, a perfect picture of rural America. The long drive up from the road is lined with twining red and white ribbons that flutter off of the posts that hold them up directing people down the dirt road towards the front of the house. There are cars filling up the sprawling front lawn, a mix of the more practical rural trucks and the city common little Hondas and Miatas, plus a few luxury models such as Mercedes and Porches. The front door is open but there’s a sign on the porch directing people around the side of the house with an arrow and WEDDING printed in an intentionally messy script. 

“When are we?” Barry asks, as they watch a small blue car jostle down the driveway. Barry used to be a good judge of cars; one of the side effects of working CSI is a lot of weird and generally useless knowledge. He isn’t anymore. There are dozens of new makes and models now, plus all the variations over the years he missed. He knows the car they're watching is a Toyota, but the year or the model are a mystery. 

“You can’t guess?” Rip asks.

Barry can. He just doesn’t want to be wrong. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up only to find he was mistaken and this is someone else's wedding. 

“Second floor on the left I think,” Rip directs him with a soft smile. “I’ll see you at the ceremony.”

Barry lets the speed force get him to the door, but pauses at the threshold. The Wedding sign flutters in the wind he created but it’s clearly been secured with speedsters rushing by in mind. This close he can hear the distant sound of the people milling around in the backyard. The same white and red ribbon decorate the staircase with bouquets of flowers adorning the stanchions. The ones closest to the ground floor look a bit more ragged and bare than the ones higher up. 

A gust of air passes through the hall dragging a few more petals off the nearest bouquets. The gust comes back and Bart materializes in front of him. 

“I thought you were still dead.”

He’s a bit younger than the version Barry’s met. His hair is a little more wild, his body oddly proportioned the way young boys often are. He’ll be a little more grown into himself by the time Barry meets him for the first time. 

“Is this a trick? Are you Evil Grandpa from another dimension?”

“No, I’m just regular me. Time travel.”

“Okay cool. I’m helping Cissie with a science project so I have to go,” Bart darts off in another gust of petals and then back again. “It was nice to meet you Grandpa!” he adds, throwing his arms around Barry before disappearing again. Barry regrets briefly that their future relationship won’t be so simple. Bart’s initial reluctance and Barry’s uncertainty making all their interactions awkward and stilted. Another person’s life he can’t find a place in. Bart has his mentors, he has Max and Jay and even Wally, he doesn’t need Barry. No one really does.

Up the stairs to the left, those were the directions Rip had given him. He hesitates. He isn’t supposed to be here. Maybe he should just go, maybe he shouldn’t be stealing this moment from the living. Maybe...maybe he isn’t missed. It’s such a stupid selfish thought, but it rattles around the root of all the other maybes. He wanted this. He wanted to see this moment to be there for it, but maybe Wally didn’t even think about the fact that he wasn’t here. He isn’t so oblivious as to think they don’t want him. He knows everyone is happy to have him back. He just isn’t sure he was missed. They’d filled in the places he’d thought his so well, maybe it would have been better to stay dead.

There are no wedding decorations upstairs, just a faded blue carpet leading down a hallway with cherry wood doors lining either side. From the door just to his right he can hear the muffled sound of women's voices. He steps away, down the hall towards the door on the left. It’s cracked open already and through the gap he can see Wally, already grown to his full height. He’s got a tux, rented clearly as it doesn’t quite fit - the shoulders a little tight and the arms a little long. Barry leans against the door frame and watches the child who’d grown to mean the world to him dress for his wedding.

“If you want I’m sure I could get Supes to get rid of them,” Dick Grayson is saying as he attempts to fix the mess Wally has made with the cufflinks. If Wally looks pretty much as Barry had left him in the future, Dick looks like a blast from the past, brighter and lighter than the man who will sit in Batman’s seat in a few years. “You don’t have to have them here.”

“I sent them invites.” Wally shrugs. It’s a familiar gesture, it Wally’s sign that he doesn’t want to talk about something, that he’s holding back. Barry hasn’t seen that shrug since he got back. “Whatever, it’s one day right, Dad will get drunk, Mom will cause a scene and what’s a wedding without that?”

“I mean me and Roy had this whole fight over Fruit Loops planned out, it was going to be friendship destroying and epic, but I guess we can let your mom cause the obligatory scene instead,” Dick jokes. 

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate you letting her be part of the festivities.”

“It’s nothing.” Dick says moving on to the next sleeve.

“Hey Boy Wonder, what am I forgetting?” Wally asks. 

“Nothing. You guys did a great job.”

“Are you sure?” Wally starts pacing sliding a bit quicker on the smooth carpet than a normal man would be able to. “I can’t shake this feeling that something isn’t right. But Bart’s got the ring and if he loses it that’s on Linda and I’m wearing shoes, so what’s wrong?”

Dick catches Wally as he passes and pushes him down onto the old-fashioned four-post bed that sits in the middle of the room. “You know what’s missing.”

Wally sags, dropping his head between his knees. “It’s not fair.”

“I know.” Dick drops down next to him and the bed dips them closer together.

“I always thought he’d be here for this.”

“I know,” Dick repeats, running a hand soothingly across Wally’s shoulders.

“It’s such bullshit you know, my fucking dad’s here but he’s not.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know if I can do this without him here.”

“I know. I can’t imagine it either, getting married without my parents there, but we can’t just put our whole lives on hold just because they won’t be a part of them anymore. They wouldn’t want us to stop moving on their account. Especially not Barry.”

This is what he was waiting for right? It feels awful, watching the defeated slump of Wally’s shoulders. And it feels good, knowing he’s missed, makes him feel important. It’s a terrible way to feel: to find happiness in another person’s misery. He can’t fix it either. Not really, he’s got one day here in the past and then Rip will take him back and his time is running down by the second. He taps lightly on the wood.

Wally is up in a fighting stance in a nanosecond, Dick following close behind at normal speed. “I swear to God Thrawne, if this is another trick...”

“No trick.” Barry holds up his hands. He doesn’t know what exactly Wally is going on about but he's learned to just accept that Thawne will always find fun new ways to wreck his life, and why should that stop just because he’s dead. “It’s really me. A man from the future owed me a favor, brought me here. Said it was a day I wouldn’t want to miss.” Barry embellishes his conversation with Rip a bit, makes it sound like it happened in the past instead of the future. Rules of time travel-don’t give the game away or you’ll risk it never happening. 

Wally relaxes his stance. It would seem fast to anyone else, but Barry can see the hesitation and doubt. “It’s really you?”

“It’s really me.”

Wally has to hunch down to hug him, and that still throws Barry off. He can say it now though, the things he doesn’t say to the Wally he knows in the future. “When did you get so tall?”

Dick slips past them out the door. 

“I had another growth spurt, you missed it.” Wally mumbles into Barry’s shirt and there’s a small note of accusation in that last part and that more than all of the future Wally’s careful understanding and gentle encouragement unties something in Barry’s chest. 

“I’m sorry.” Barry says, can say to this Wally, who is still young and a little lost and angry at him. He can’t say it in the future. He can’t apologize for Wally turning out so well, what would he even be apologizing for? Sorry you didn’t need me after all?

Wally shakes his head. “Are you back?”

“No, not really. I have to go back to my time. I just couldn’t pass up the chance to be here today.” Barry pulls back to look at Wally again. “You look all grown up, Kid.”

“Hardly,” Wally says with a crooked smile and that familiar shrug. It makes him look younger again, somewhere closer to the teen Barry knew than the man he left. 

“You do. I thought I’d get to see it. I thought I’d get to see you become this amazing man you are. But I missed it all.” And maybe he isn’t talking to this Wally so much anymore. “You grew up without me.”

“Don’t be stupid. I grew up because of you,” Wally counters with a sniff. “I never would have made it if I didn’t have you.”

Barry pulls Wally back into his arms. “I’m so proud of you, Kid. You’re doing such an amazing job. You’re the best Flash this city could ask for, and you're going to be a great husband and father.”

“I could be more patient with Bart,” Wally admits.

“Probably,” Barry acknowledges, both of them probably could be. “So do it.”

Wally nods, “See this is why I need you.” 

“Barry?” The voice that Barry will never forget interrupts them. 

“Hi, honey.” He turns towards the door. Iris is older right now, lines of age and motherhood and stresses of a life Barry doesn’t know anything about mark her face. She’s so beautiful. Everytime he sees her it takes his breath away and he wonders how he ever got so lucky. 

“You’re not supposed to be back yet.”

“Just visiting,” Barry leans down to kiss her.

“I’ve missed you so much.” 

Barry can’t say he missed her too. It wasn’t exactly possible where he was. “I was always thinking of you.” It’s close enough to the truth, remembering her was what kept him from completely disappearing.

“Dick sent me up to collect Wally, I guess you’re the reason why he thought I should come.”

“Sounds like him,” Wally laughs. 

“You ready, slugger?” Iris asks.

“Since the first time I saw her,” Wally grins. 

“Well come on, Kid, let’s get you married,” Barry reaches up to mess Wally’s carefully combed hair. Wally ducks away at superspeed while Iris moves to slap his hand away. 

The wedding is being held in the barn out back. It’s a spacious building long since retired from its original purpose. The ancient smell of animals so thin only the heroes with enhanced senses can still detect it. The rolling tide of industrialization had done away with the need for horses and the encroaching mono-farming corporations had slowly stripped away the vast farmland the Park’s had once owned leaving them with just the land the house was on and the now empty barn. The doors on all sides had been flung open and chairs and people spilled out the sides and back. Red and white flowers line the aisle. Dick produces a wig and a fake mustache from somewhere for Barry to wear if he wants to keep his presence a secret. It’s itchy and feels kind of stupid but he doesn’t want to spend the whole day explaining the situation so he takes them.

They don’t do the full processional that Barry and Iris had done. Wally and Dick just hang around the front of the stage until the band the new Green Lantern kid had conjured up starts playing the wedding march. One of Linda’s niece’s or second cousin’s comes down first in a puffy red and white polk-a-dot dress. She dumps handfuls of rose petals on the white runner until about half way down when she upturns the basket and runs to her mother. 

Then it’s Linda’s turn. She is very beautiful in her simple wedding dress, made with clean lines and small lace embellishments around the edges. It fits the woman Barry knows from the future, practical and organized with a careful attention to details. Wally is staring at her face with rapt adoration. He still looks at her that way. He looked at her that way when she was sitting in their kitchen in sweatpants covered in spaghetti sauce after one of the kids knocked over the bottle. 

Bart shows up with the rings about half way through the dearly beloved speech. Linda gives him a surreptitious high five and Wally rolls his eyes but the smile never leaves his face. Until they get to part where they’re supposed to read their vows. Wally gets the panicked wide eyed stare and zips alway in a sudden breeze.

Barry finds him upstairs flipping through a stack of hallmark cards.

“I forgot to write my vows!”

“I figured.”

“What am I supposed to say? Why did I agree to writing our own vows? I’m terrible at saying feelings. I made a complete ass of myself the first time we met. What am I supposed to say?”

“Go back to your wedding, and just tell her how she makes you feel,” Barry says. “We can all see how much you love her. Whatever you say, that’s what matters.”

“Okay, yeah,” Wally sweeps out of the room back to alter.

“Wally? Did you--” Linda starts to ask suspiciously.

“-Write mine out? I didn’t need to, when I thought about the moments we had they came to me in a flash,” Wally replies with a bright grin. Linda’s suspicious look doesn’t quite go away but she’s starting to smile. “Linda...You’re my beacon. No matter where I go, no matter what I do…” Wally starts talking and there’s a low hum building. Something feels strange, like the vibrations of a distant bell are passing through the hall. No one else seems to notice it except maybe Bart, who’s rubbing his ear. That might just be Bart being Bart though.

“It’s your moment,” Rip says from next to him.

“Jesus, where did you come from?”

“You feel it, the disturbance? Don’t let it take her.”

“What is it?”

Rip shrugs, “No one ever quite figured it out, maybe magic, maybe science, maybe both. Does it matter? Only someone already outside of time can sense it - that means you.”

The feeling is getting louder, more intense like the bell has become a drone humming in the big barn. Bart is wrinkling his nose and shaking his head. The diamond of the ring Wally is holding glints in the light as Barry scans the room for where the feeling might be coming from. He sweeps around the outside of the building and as he passes the open barn doors for the second time the ring glints again. Wait - that’s not right. The angle of light shouldn’t be reflecting that direction. The ring. It’s in the ring. So much for keeping a low profile. Barry changes direction. Humans are decently made for quick lateral motion but they aren’t great at it. It’s why he tends to run in circles rather than squares. He slides on the grass and the speed he was moving at sends almost to the woods before he gets the inertia under control. He makes it back to the altar just as Wally starts to slip the ring over the nail of Linda’s finger. He grabs it and the velocity keeps him careening across the room and into the woods. 

Wally catches up to him in a blink. He knew the kid was faster than him, but he didn’t realize he was already faster than him. 

“What the hell?” he says, grabbing Barry. The change in force drags them both off course and into a tree. The trunk cracks with a bang when they impact. 

“It’s bad. Someone put something in it. You really can’t hear it?”

“No? Are you sure? You’re not, I don’t know, imagining things?”

“I’m sure. Besides, are you really willing to risk Linda’s life on that?”

“Never,” Wally looks at the ring clutched in Barry’s hand and sighs. “That ring was really expensive and it took me like ages to find one that good. I went to every jeweler in Italy.”

“I’m afraid these sacrifices are part of the hero terrority, Kid.”

“Being a hero sucks,” Wally whines. “Alright I’ll find another one, I need to get back to finish my wedding. Linda was about to tell everyone how amazing I am.” He zips away.

Rip steps out of the trees.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Barry asks, holding up the humming ring.

“Here.” Rip holds open a clear plastic bag.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, it’s this nifty invention from the twentieth century. They call it a ziplock bag.” Rip replies sarcastically.

“Haha,” Barry drops the ring in the bag and Rip pockets it. “I don’t suppose I get to stay for the rest of it.”

“I’m sorry. You weren’t exactly subtle and you’re not really supposed to be around now. If certain people found you...let’s just say it wouldn’t end well.” 

“I figured. Why did you bring me here? Surely you could have found someone less risky to save Linda?”

“Sure, but he wanted you here so I picked you.”

“Do you have any other missions planned?”

“No, it’s time to go home.”

“I don’t get to say goodbye?”

“Only a lucky few ever do.” Rip holds out his hand again, and Barry thinks about not taking it, about running as far and as fast as he can, about staying here with a Wally who isn’t so far away from the kid he remembers. It’s a time and place that still has room for him, that still needs him. “We can make a quick stop though,” Rip offers, “no strings attached”

He takes Rip’s hand.

The house is dark and unfamiliar. A soft yellow glow leaks out from a door half way down the hall. Rip disappears from next to him and Barry walks slowly to the door. Wally looks up from a big soft chair where he’d fallen asleep, his forehead crinkling.

“Barry?” he asks in a low voice.

“Hi.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Just a little time travel, hitting the highlights.”

Wally nods, and gets up. “I’m glad you’re here. There’s someone I wanted you to meet.” He walks over to the big crib Barry hadn’t noticed. He settles a tiny bundle of blankets into his arms with an ease that not only speaks of practice but a natural affinity. He carries the small thing over to Barry. 

“This is my son. Hey Jai, say hi to Uncle Barry. Hi, Uncle Barry.” he mimics a high childish voice and waves Jai’s tiny arm for him. “You want to hold him?” He holds Jai out and settles him into Barry’s arms before Barry can answer. 

Barry’s never actually held a baby before. He’s done the whole rescue of the baby from the fire or other terrible danger thing a few times. But just standing in a nursery holding a baby because it’s his to hold hasn’t really been a thing he did. They’re so small and smell - people have told him about the baby smell but he hadn’t actually smelled a baby that didn’t smell mostly like smoke before. It’s unique, sweet and milky and something, something just baby. Jai yawns and wiggles closer to his chest, wrapping a fist around his shirt. 

“I thought you guys would like each other.” Wally says picking up another small bundle. “Hey Iray - you want to say hi to your Uncle too?” Iris gurgles and starts kicking making mewing unhappy noises. “It’s okay, baby girl, you can lie down again if you want.” Wally carefully places her back down. She doesn’t quite settle down twisting and reaching out like she’s looking for something. “I think she wants her brother back. She’s very protective of him for a baby with no motor control and only a partially developed brain.” Wally says with a fond smile picking her up again and coming to stand next Barry. She settles down once she senses Jai next to her. 

“They’re beautiful.”

“I think Linda’s responsible for most of that.”

Barry brushes a finger across Jai’s soft head. “I’m really proud of you. I don’t know if I told you that enough, and I’m really glad you found so much happiness.” 

“The only thing missing is you.” 

“You’re doing fine without me.”

“I know, but I still want you here.”

“I wish I was here too.” Barry sees Rip appear in the door behind Wally. “But I have to go. The future awaits and all.” 

Wally pulls him close in a loose hug around the babies. “I miss you.”

Barry watches him settle the twins back into their crib as Rip takes his hand.

The world goes white around him.

The desert sky is the same pale winter grey it was. He can hear Iris’ high pitched squeal as Wally catches her and throws her on his back. Together they take off down the ravine in search of Jai. Rip is nowhere to be seen. 

The sun moves across the sky and Wally comes to sit next to Barry as the kids continue chasing after each other. 

“I don’t know how kids have so much energy,” he complains.

Barry doesn’t have much experience with kids. Wally was the only one he’d ever had, but Wally had certainly always been a ball of energy, difficult to keep up with even with superspeed. “Maybe it’s just your kids.”

Wally makes a face at him and he actually almost looks like a kid again, like Barry’s kid again. His face smooths out turning serious. “Hey, there was something I wanted to talk to you about.” 

“Okay?”

“So,” Wally starts, “when the twins were first born we’d decided if anything happened to us we’d want Linda’s parents to take them. They were good parents and they’ve been good grandparents, so it seemed like the best choice but once the kids started showing powers we figured we should probably find someone from the cape crowd, you know someone who can keep up with them. And I love Dick, and he’s doing great with the demonspawn but I refuse to let my kids grow up in Gotham and I’m stalling. Sorry. What I wanted to ask, what we wanted to ask was, if anything happens to us will you take care of our children?” 

“Of course.” Barry doesn’t even have to think about it. Maybe he should, but he doesn’t. He’d never say no to Wally’s kids. 

“Thank you. I’m really...there wasn’t anyone else I would have wanted.”

The kids choose that moment to come barrelling up the ravine. 

“Uncle Barry look! We found a fossil,” Iris says holding up a rock with the delicate lines of fern leaf pressed into it.

“Wow, that’s very cool. How old do you think it is?”

“It’s from the Cretaceous time,” Iris announces authoritatively.

“Iris is going to be a paleontologist,” Jai informs him. “I’m going to be a forensic scientist like you.”

“Is that so? Do you like chemistry?”

“Mmhm,” Jai nods. “At school I’m learning about acids and bases and we made a volcano with vinegar and baking soda.” 

“That sounds very exciting. How about next time Iris wants to come out here and look for fossils, you and me go hang out at my lab and we can do lots of fun experiments with acids and bases.”

“Can I dad?” Jai asks excitedly.

“Sure thing kiddo,” Wally ruffles Jai’s hair and smiles at Barry. Barry finds himself smiling back, maybe this time can find room for him. 


End file.
